Alberta Business Marketing

Marketing First

That was the title I selected as the introduction for a post to launch the new free downloadable e-book: Marketing Right Now. I pondered long and hard on what title might be best. The book deals with the fundamental basics of starting up and growing a business. Almost by default I chose the title Marketing First. My implicit thinking was that any activity is best done if you first cover strategy and then work out the tactics. That is true in waging war and it is also true in growing your business.

An alternative title might have been Marketing Strategy First. When researching that title, I was struck by a website I found that dealt with ’strategic marketing for growing companies’. The strategic marketing expert had assembled a lot of the right stuff. However I was somewhat surprised to find that the blog was buried almost in the footer and the archive of blog posts, shown on the right, suggested this was not a high priority.

Strategy First, Blog Second

Although there are many important principles in the E-Book, Marketing Right Now, if I could choose only one that would have the biggest impact then I think it would be the title of this post: Blogging First And Foremost.

The sad fact is that blogging does not get the respect it should have. Blogging is all about the dialogue you should have with your prospects and clients. Even if that were not sufficient reason, the other important factor is that Google loves blogs. The RSS news feed for your blog is an instant alert to the world that you have something to say.

Nevertheless blogs, like Rodney Dangerfield, get no respect. Of course they most often started off as personal musings or journals, so why would anyone else care. In addition, blog is such an unfortunate and ungainly name. I often recommend that clients use a different name. For example News and Views is an upbeat kind of title. For some websites, Fresh Ideas can be an even better choice.

Dialogue With Your Market-Place

If you are not using your blog to make contact with your market-place at least once per week, you might adopt this discipline. As your week draws to a close, ask yourself the question, “What did my prospects and clients hear from me this week? Of course there is another question you should be keeping in mind. What did my prospects and clients hear from my competitors? With that thought in mind make sure that early each week you have something to say to these important individuals in your marketplace.

If you have nothing to say, are you sure you’re working hard enough to grow your business. At the very least, you may have seen something in the market-place from your radar screens (Google Alerts, RSS News Feed subscriptions) that your contacts will find interesting. Remember every time you write a blog post, you are improving your visibility with Google. That’s where prospects are looking for a supplier just like you.

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Blogging First And Foremost

Related Posts

• January 19, 2009 -- Business Bookstore (0)
• February 24, 2010 -- Marketing Right Now For Winners (0)
• August 8, 2009 -- Email Marketing Requires Good Prospect Lists (0)
• October 15, 2008 -- SMM Newsletters Take A New Format (0)

Tags: Business, Rodney Dangerfield
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1. Add a Feedburner Subscription Box.  Make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your posts by email.  Over time, you subscriber list will grow.  Think of your blog as an ongoing E-newsletter. Burn the feed for your blog at  Feedburner.google.com and monitor your blog stats.  Use the free widget to publicize your blog with an email subscription form.

2. Make your blog searchable.  Having a Search Box on your blog makes it easier for folks to find content that you may have written about in the past. Search on my blog is also useful to me. I use search when writing my blog to quickly find and link to relevant articles I’ve written in the past.

3. Add a Facebook Fan Box.  Alright, I know this blog doesn’t have a Facebook Fan box, but that’s because I don’t have a Facebook Fan Page.  Most Tourism businesses and regions are different in this regard – AT LEAST THEY SHOULD BE.  If you don’t have a Facebook Fan Page stop reading this post and build a Fan Page.  Read this post on the number of Canadians who use Facebook with some great charts showing how popular Facebook is these days in Canada!   Then check out this post and add a Facebook Fan Box to your Blog (updated).

4. Make your blog social by adding a Google Friend Connect Box that encourages your fans to connect with a Google, Yahoo! or Twitter.  I also recommend TwitterCounter.com Widget that is pretty nifty way of connecting your Twitter Community.  It shows the Twitter folks who have recently visited.

5. Add a Disqus Commenting System.  The heart and soul of any blog is the conversation that takes place with readers. Disqus Commenting System is a fav because it makes it easy for readers to comment with whatever social profile they prefer.  It also allows Guest Commenting.

6. Allow Guest Commenting.  OK, I admit it, this one is a pet peave.  I often come across blog posts that get me excited about commenting and they limit commenting to members!  PLEASE make it easier to comment by using a comment management tool and permit guest comments.  Comment spam takes a bit of time, but its a sacrifice your readers want you to make.

7. Visit your Blog Guests. Your readers often have an online life too! Follow them on twitter, visit their facebook pages, read their blogs and comment on their Web sites.  It’s just good karma and will help you grow of a wider community of fans and friends.  One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter and FriendConnect widgets is it  makes it easy to click over and see what my visitors up to.

8. Draft a new About Page. This is really high on my list of things to do for our tourism Web site as well as my blog.  What better time to consider what makes your blog tick than the turning of a new year.  Start by taking a few moments to answer three important questions.

1. Who are you writing for?  Think about who your readers are, what interests them and why they might subscribe to your blog.
2. What topics do care about? What kind of writing or multimedia content do you focus on?
3. What makes you tick? What gets you excited?

9. Make it easy to contact you.  Determine an action you want your readers to take if they want to connect, then provide the contact points that you want folks to use.  For most tourism industry folk providing access to your email address and phone number are critical, but consider also providing links to your Google Profile and other social networking profiles if you want folks to connect with you there.  If you have a Google account, you may also want to add a simple Google Docs Web form to collect incoming requests for more information.

10. Feature Guests and Link to Others.  If you see something that you think your readers would be interested in, link to it.  If you see someone doing something interesting in your community, quote them or invite them to join you for an audio podcast.  Writing about or featuring others on your blog can expand your audience by appealing to the audience members of your featured guests.  One of my favourite things to do is record Skype conversations with Audio Hijack Pro and post them on my blog.

Supercharge your blog in 2010

Choose one of these ideas that is new for you and spend a bit of time this week adding it to your blog.  Your fans and readers will thank you for it.

Got any ideas to add?  What are you doing to supercharge your blog in 2010?

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Tags: 10 ways, 2010, blog, supercharge
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It seems strange to me to congratulate someone who is effectively spewing venom. But I feel proud of Rob Anderson for switching allegiance from the Alberta PCs to the Wildrose Alliance. No sooner had he made the announcement and he began immediately exposing the dark corners of the Government he had supported and loved so dearly not so long ago.

To do this takes gumption and honesty. It could not have been an easy decision, but assuming he is telling the truth, it is clearly one based on morality and I applaud him for this. We need more politicians who are willing to be open and honest with the public and who are willing to stake their career on correcting their mistakes.

Yet, that is where my applause for his and Heather Forsyth’s defection ends.

If you don’t read many Alberta political blogs then you probably haven’t seen an interesting phenomenon happening coming out of the Reboot Alberta conference. Average citizens who attended – and many who didn’t – have been taking the time to put into writing what they believe the definition of “progressive” is. “Progressive” being what Rebooters have branded themselves as. (My own thoughts on the subject will come in the near future in the form of a series of posts.)

In my mind, I find myself amazed at the number of Albertan’s taking the time, through this difficult exercise, to try and spell out what they want their province to look like – and how Alberta might get from where it is now, to that point.

I’m not seeing this kind of open idealogical and policy development happening with the Wildrose Alliance and that concerns me. Hardly anyone is talking about what it means to be a Wildrose supporter. Especially before choosing to become one.

Up until this point the majority of what the general public has seen is a party which is defining itself via negative statements: i.e. “We are not the Tories.” This was perhaps most clearly stated during the Calgary-Glenmore by-election when the slogan the Wildrose Alliance staked their claim with was “Send Ed a Message”. There was nothing in there about how their position would be any different, but that’s okay because it tapped into a societal urge to do just that: send Ed a message. (Remember the Liberals did come in second in the race, also beating out the PC candidate. Meaning many voters chose to send a message too, just via a different channel.)

The problem with defining yourself in such a way is you’ve left the power to define you in the hands of your opposition. It would be very easy for Ed Stelmach to simply illustrate ‘the message was received’ and suddenly you’re brand has dried up. To be truly effective, the Wildrose Alliance are going to have to illustrate what they are and just what they are not.

So who is the Wildrose Alliance? What do they stand for?

From the policy documents on their website and what their leader Danielle Smith has said in the media, I think they can be summed up as offering ‘change’ or ’something different’. While this doesn’t help solve my previous point it’s not a bad horse to hitch your wagon to. After all, it worked for Barack Obama.

But the point with Obama was, he really did represent a different way of doing things. (Arguments can be made that his results so far have been the same, but his methods have been near polar opposites of his predecessor.) I’m not convinced yet that the Wildrose Alliance really does offer a different way of doing things.

Case in point the addition of Anderson and Forsyth. If you’ve staked your entire brand on the fact you are different than the PC Party, how can you accept two of their MLAs as your own? This appears to be a quick – albeit short-term helpful – abandonment of the central pillar of the brand.

Yet, I think it goes deeper than just this. From what I’ve been told, the Wildrose Alliance party was founded by former PC supporters who feel the party has lost its way over the past however many years. Anderson and Forsyth and the framing of the by-election victory illustrate this disillusion as well.

Here’s my point: if voters are looking for something new – how does the Wildrose Alliance represent anything other than simply the PC Party of the past? That’s not new, that’s simply slapping a new coat of paint on the same thing we’ve already had before. Change for the sake of change, if you will.

I’m not deluded however. This alone may be enough to hand them a majority in the next election. The Liberals – despite David Swann’s best efforts – are looking to do nothing more than change their logo, while the Alberta NDP plod along contemplating no change of any kind. When these are the options you are up against, the Wildrose’s fresh face with the same tired out plan might be more than enough.

I may be wrong, but it strikes me the public don’t just want new people doing the same thing we’ve done before. If given the option, they want Alberta politics to be done in completely different – and better – way.

So far as I can see right now, those bloggers typing out their thoughts on what the province could be are the only ones offering anything “new”. And that’s too bad they’re the only ones.

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Tags: Alberta Liberal Party, Alberta NDP Party, Barak Obama, Danielle Smith, Ed Stelmach, Heather Forsyth, Politics, Reboot Alberta, Rob Anderson, Wildrose Alliance
Posted in Alberta Business, Alberta PC Party, Blogging, Marketing | | Comments Off

In less than a day you can have a great mobile-ready Website that delivers all the content you need to satisfy the needs of your iPhone and other smartphone carrying guests before, during and after their visit to your region.

Why ensure your content looks good on a handheld?

• 60% of the world’s population have a cell phone. (3.1 Billion cell phone contracts)
• Cell phone users replace their phones every 18 months; the vast majority of new phones are smartphones.
• 91% of cell phone users have their phone within arms reach 24/7; providing users with impulse access to Web content during the “in-between moments” in a day.
• listen to podcast episode with Hilton VP on the explosive growth in handheld sales for the hotel chain.

Wordpress.com blogs are automatically optimized for iPhone and Google Android phones; another reason why it’s time you started blogging with Wordpress.

Make your Wordpress blog a fully functioning  iPhone-ready and Android phone-ready Website without worrying at all about being a code monkey.

Create an account at Wordpress.com and add a blog.  Treat your blogsite as a free iPhone-ready and Android-ready Web site.  Both phones use the Webkit engine that powers Safari Web browsers and these phones will co-rule the handheld landscape along with Blackberry.  Soon Blackberry is expected to join the Webkit/Safari browser handheld crowd too.

Get your mobile site started with the right content on a Wordpress blog

Choose a Theme and Banner

It doesn’t matter what theme you choose, just pick one that has space for a banner image.

Banner Image: In the theme settings for your blog choose a banner image.  Give your Blog your Business Name as it’s title and include your main phone number in the Tagline setting on the General Settings tab for your blog.  Remember viewers may be looking at your site on their phone. Your phone number will automatically be a link, allowing your iPhone/Android site user to click the number to dial you with their phone!

Create Permanent Pages you think handheld device users and blog readers will appreciate:

• About us:  Include Contact Info.
• Check Availability: Consider using a page with a Google Webform.
• Link to your TripAdvisor page:  Encourage guests to write a review from the road when they check out.
• Map: Embed a Google Map on this page. (iPhone users can click on the map to link out of the blog to iPhone Maps app)
• Seasonal Rates: iPhone or handheld specials?
• FAQ’s:  Include things to do en route
• Media: On iPhone, Audio Podcasts can play in iTunes app, Youtube Videos open in the Youtube app and photo libraries on Flickr or Picasaweb can open in their handheld media format.  Be sure to link to your favourite picture folder on Flickr.com or Picasaweb.com

Flickr Photo Page looks great on iPhone:

Turn on the Mobile Theme for your Wordpress Blog

By default, the mobile version of your site is on, but check just to make sure.

On the Appearance tab click on Extras.

On the Extras page, Display a mobile theme box should be checked.

What happens now?

When viewing your Wordpress.com blog on iPhone or Google Android device your new Wordpress blog site automatically renders beautifully with WPtouch theme by BraveNewCode. W0rdpress.org (self-hosted blog) users can choose from a few plug-ins to render your site for iPhone (WPTouch among them).  A nice feature of WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of your website simply by switching the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.

Publicize your iPhone Page

As with the regular Wordpress view of your blog, the site home page of your site shows the most recent posts first.  The permanent pages-list at http://YourURL.wordpress.com/?pages-list is a great page to link to from your existing Web site as the iPhone or mobile version of your Web site.   Consider treating this pages-list page as your mobile home page.

Ask your guests to bookmark the iPhone blog version of your Website on their iPhone.

Pages list view of your blog on iPhone:

The Drop Down list in the upper right corner of the iPhone site brings up:

• a search box,
• home page
• links to permanent pages,
• post archives.

Special Pages for YOUR Ideal Guests:

No one knows the needs of your guest better than you (except your guests themselves).  Create pages you know your ideal guest will appreciate. Imagine for instance that bus tours are a key market segment for you. Consider a page dedicated to the guests traveling on the bus. Give the link to travel trade and have them include it in literature to your bus-traveling mobile phone toting guest so that they can view your content en route.

Get Blogging!

There you have it: A free iPhone-ready, Android-ready version of your Website; another great reason to have a free Wordpress.com blog for your tourism business.

Links

• Screenshots taken from Todd Whyte’s blog at Ocean View Hotel in Rocky Harbour, NL, Canada.
• Mashable’s Guide to Mobile Design
• Smashing Magazines’s Mobile Design Showcase

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Tags: android, blog, handheld, iphone, iphone-ready, website, wordpress
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Get Greater impact from Twitter on your Website Search Ranking:

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the recently announced Google / Twitter deal is that Google can now see all those links that are tweeted.

Links have always been the secret sauce for getting your Website to rise above others to the first page – or even the top of the first page of the search results. The image above says it all.

Turn your Website into a Blog to get the most of Twitter

GET BLOGGING! No matter what business you are in. Produce real time content that your community will love. The more you do it, the more you will benefit.

Here’s Why:

• Each Tweet is a Web page on a Website with high authority granted by Google – Twitter.com
• Using Twitter, people are helping Google rank Webpages in real time by linking to them.
• If your content is good, Retweeted links will produce more incoming links to your content.
• Links in Tweets can point to Webpages of all kinds but most tweeted links go to Blog posts.
• Tweets are generally about real time, current news and content. What is more tweet-worthy (if it’s not a word it should be – get with it spell checker): a Website that is updated seasonally or a Blog that is updated daily?
• Tweeted links may have higher time-sensitive value that degrades over time.
• Your Website is not likely to generate much interest if you tweet about it constantly.
• Blogs are platforms for producing link-worthy content frequently.

Conclusions: How Twitter can improve your Website Search Ranking

Blog posts that provide value to your twitter community by featuring news, podcasts, video, photos, stories can earn you considerably more link juice and lead to increased position in the Google Search results.

Links:

• Twitter and Google Partnership
• Using Social Media is a lot like flossing
• How to get any kind of media into your Wordpress Blog
• Does your Website still look like it did in December 2008?

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Tags: blog, google, google news, Twitter, wordpress
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